


Such a Sentamentalist

by hopingforaword



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Almost No Dialogue, Childhood Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Sexual Abuse, Slight Abandonment Issues, feeling alone, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7672441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopingforaword/pseuds/hopingforaword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything, there was Ernst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such a Sentamentalist

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in twenty minutes because inspiration just struck. Un-edited, un-betaed so let me know if there's grammar/spelling/tense issues.  
> Updated for Hänschen Rilow appreciation week. Added Max, changed some sentences, just as sad/happy as before

After everything, there was Ernst. Long after Hänschen’s parents stopped caring about him, after church started to feel more like hell than heaven, after Max died, after Moritz killed himself, after Melchior got sent to reform school, after Wendla died, after everything got just too fucking hard, there was Ernst. 

Sweet, beautiful, caring, Ernst. Well, he had been those three things before Hänschen got to him. Hänschen had worried he’d suck the light out of the boy the way life had sucked the smile off his face. But Ernst had stayed sweet and caring. Too sweet, sometimes, to make sense in Hänschen’s awful life. A mouthful of store bought frosting after a lifetime of only brussel sprouts. Too caring, sometimes, to fit in with all the people who had never gave a damn. A tropical vacation after living a whole life below zero.

Remembering a time when people cared for Hänschen was hard. His memories of his parents’ love was buried under years of disdain. Hazy memories existed of long trips to the lake, helping his mother with the cooking, going with his father into the city, professing love to his parents as they tucked him in for bed. Once he turned thirteen and it became clear that Hänschen would never be “the man his father wanted him to be,” whatever the hell that meant, they left him alone. A blessing and a curse.

Hänschen remembered when he loved going to church, when he thought that being an altar boy meant that the priest must love him as much as his parents did once. He had been so naïve, and so wrong. Some nights, years later, Hänschen would still be kept up by the ghosts of hands pushing him down, voices threatening him with damnation. After three months, he had stopped being an altar boy (and stopped going to church)s. The church elders warned him that stepping down from such an honor given by God was surely a path to hell. Hänschen felt damned either way, and so he protected his sanity.

Hänschen’s first boyfriend, Max, had quickly gotten very sick. The two had thought they were in love when they wasted hour after hour holding hands behind the school building they both hated, stealing the occasional kiss. It had been three months months of silly cuddles and jokes and nervous thirteen-year-old sweating before Max’s parents had taken him to the hospital. He had cancer, he had wept into Hänschen’s chest, and it was impossible to cure. Max probably had about two months. But him and his doctor and parents (and Hänschen) didn’t know that Hänschen had the flu. Max’s prognosis had made him insatiable. He and Hänschen had gone from barely kissing to constantly having long makeout sessions that ended in sex. Max had caught Hänschen’s flu. He died three weeks after he was diagnosed. Hänschen tried, when he remembered Max, to not blame himself for Max’s death. He wasn’t very good at it.

Hänschen remembered Moritz, how sweet Moritz had been, but with that underlying current of being completely lost. Another lost soul. A kindred spirit. He used to steal Moritz away from Melchior as often as he could, show him beautiful places that Melchior would never go but that Moritz deserved to see. Hänschen had never meant to kiss Moritz, had never meant to hold his hand, had never meant to hold him, his back pressed against Hänschen’s chest, through all the long nights in the meadows hidden from both of their fathers, had never meant to fall in love with Moritz. He was just trying to be friendly. Save Moritz, save himself. Hänschen had only meant to show both of them that there was still beauty in life, no matter how many fathers shouted about worthlessness. There was still a light at the end of the tunnel. So maybe falling in love with Moritz was really falling in love with himself, or maybe the idea of a better self, a better life, but it didn’t matter. Hänschen still cried at Moritz’s funeral, still teared up a little whenever someone said his name. He remembered whispering into Moritz’s hair that he loved him long after Moritz fell asleep in his arms. Hänschen tried not to cry and pretended that he didn’t care, that he never cared. He tried not to remember that he’d lost two loves to the dark spectre of oblivion.

Hänschen remembered Melchior as he had been before, brash and smart and loud and stupid. There was no love with Melchior, and so everything between them was less innocent. The fevered kisses in Melchior’s hayloft, sneaking into the woods after school to touch each other gently and exploratorily (it wasn’t the same as with Max, it couldn’t be, no one was like Max), going swimming as an excuse to strip down and see each other naked,  and glorious stolen days when Hänschen’s parents went into the city and Melchior and Hänschen slept together. . Hänschen remembered being infuriated that he and Melchior were  not able to talk about it, and by how little Melchior cared, before he realized he didn’t care either. And then he was infuriated with himself because he knew Moritz and Melchior had something going on and he couldn’t be in love with Moritz and messing around with Melchior if Moritz and Melchior were meant for each other. So Hänschen left. He tried to make Melchior leave, but Hänschen knew if he wasn’t the one to leave, neither of them would be. Melchior half-heartedly asked him why and Hänschen had kissed him rather harshly and said, holding Melchior’s face in one hand and watching the ocean blue eyes search his olive green ones “It was never really anything, right?” And Melchior had nodded. Hänschen had felt bad, like maybe Melchior really wanted him to stay and wasn’t at all sure how to put his feelings into words,  but he had shaken his head to clear the thought. Melchior was just as smart as he was. If he wanted to say something, he would have. Later, Hänschen realized he wouldn’t have known what to say either. Maybe smart didn’t mean knowing how to not care. Maybe they both cared a lot more than they said.

Hänschen remembered Wendla, kind and gentle and quiet and beautiful. They had been best friends when they were little, and Wendla was the only person that Hänschen had admitted to that he liked boys and girls (and boys a bit more than girls). Wendla had looked a little confused, but smiled and nodded, accepting Hänschen in the way only young children seemed to be. She had invited him over for playdates and lunches and tried her best to get Ilse and Melchior and Moritz to let him play with the four of them, but to no avail. Hänschen was from the nicer part of town, and even when they were little, all the children knew there was some huge rift that could never be bridged. So Hänschen was friends with just Wendla, until they turned thirteen and Wendla’s mother had forbidden her from  spending time with boys, laced with some paranoid that Wendla would fall for one of the neighborhood boys and end up pregnant, and then Hänschen wasn’t really friends with anyone.Sure there was Melchior, but screwing around didn’t make people friends.  Sure there was Moritz, but he was afraid to open up and scare the boy he loved away. There had been Max, until he passed away. Hänschen was a weird kind of alone, and he couldn’t help but feel it was his fault. So when Wendla died because she was pregnant with Melchior’s child, Hänschen broke.. Wendla, the sweetest, most innocent person Hänschen had known, was dead and it was his fault because he could have kept sleeping with Melchior and everyone he loved died. Nothing could make him feel better.

Hänschen often thought about how Ernst was just like the four that came before him. Delicate like Max, kind like Moritz, gentle like Wendla, even passionate like Melchior. He never voiced these comparisons, choosing instead to tell Ernst the whole story of why he didn’t let people in.  As he retold his life, he remembered that Ernst loved his parents, had also been friends with Max (he had sat next to Hänschen at the funeral), had been an altar boy too, had been Moritz’s neighbor , had been tutored by Melchior, had somehow stayed Wendla’s friend even after her mother had forbidden her to see the boys. So when Hänschen laughed at the idea of Ernst as a father, when a cold shock went through his body at the mention of pastors, when he cried thinking about all their lost friends, Hänschen was amazed that Ernst didn’t leave, but stuck around, pulled him closer. Their lives had been so close to each other, so similar, and yet never quite met until it was too late for Ernst to see the bare light that used to exude from Hänschen. Hänschen was afraid he’d never be as happy as Ernst needed, deserved him to be. He’d never be quite the right boy for the boy he loved more than he’d ever loved anyone.

But Ernst had never left his side, and Hänschen didn’t have the force of will to leave the amazing boy behind. Slowly, Ernst made Hänschen laugh and grin and just generally let his defenses down. He began to chip away the rough, dark exterior to expose the shining light inside. One night, lying on the grass behind Ernst’s house, Hänschen said, “I’m glad you get to see me this way.”

Ernst had turned over, hair still a mess from Hänschen’s fingers but eyes shining stars, and asked, “What way?”

“Happy, I guess. But more the way I used to be. Glowing.”

Ernst had pressed a soft kiss to Hänschen’s cheek. “You were always glowing. I could always see that. The trouble was getting you to see it Hänsi.” He curled up into Hänschen’s side, holding one of Hänschen’s hands over the blonde boy’s heart. “I love you Hänschen.”

“I love you Ernst.” And Hänschen was glad he’d been forced to save the phrase for this boy who was more special than anyone else. A boy who made him feel like maybe he wasn’t so damned after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Talk to me, hit me up with prompts, or just scream with me about Spring Awakening at [hopingforaword.tumblr.com](hopingforaword.tumblr.com)


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